Security is not just binoculars

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is acting as if he had been hired as an external consultant to rehabilitate the Israel Defense Forces after the Second Lebanon War: He is devoting all his attention to that task. Even though he is the Labor Party leader who, at Camp David, came closest to an agreement with the Palestinians on establishing a Palestinian state, Barak has not made public his views on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's diplomatic moves, and it seems he is basing his political stature on viewing reality through a pair of binoculars.

Barak shows up at army exercises as an uber-chief of staff and is busy setting up new IDF divisions and developing defensive systems against missiles, as his cabinet position requires him to do. But he has been leery of making statements on diplomatic issues, thereby undermining his status as the traditional leader of the peace camp.

From his testimony to the Winograd Committee, one can conclude that even today Barak considers unilateral withdrawals possible and even desirable if there is no one to talk to. He does not see the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon as a rash move, but as one necessitated by reality after he had carefully examined the option of coordinating the pullout with Syria. This is presumably also how he views the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Judging by his past statements on a withdrawal from the West Bank, he evidently views this, too, as a necessity more than a choice - or in his words: "Life will ultimately bring us to this."

Barak's only response to the diplomatic program being promoted by President Shimon Peres, which was publicized this week, was that Israel should not quit the West Bank until it has developed a defensive system against rockets, which is likely to take several years. Should this caveat torpedo an agreement in principle with the Palestinian government on a state in the West Bank and Gaza, or does it merely define when Israel's military, as opposed to civilian, presence in the West Bank will end, using the model of its withdrawal from the northern West Bank during the disengagement?

Barak must answer these question not after the fact - to the committees that investigate the next war - but to his potential voters, who at the moment see no difference between him and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. It is impossible to shut one's eyes to the societal processes that could thwart any future diplomatic agreement and even make the task of evacuating settlements impossible. The right is aware of these processes under which the ultra-Orthodox community is growing, and with it, the right's political power, while the number of scullcap-wearing IDF officers is also growing steadily. In another few years, there might be so many soldiers refusing to evacuate West Bank settlements that it cannot be done. Such refusals could even reach the highest ranks, which have hinted at their unhappiness over having been saddled with the disengagement.

Developing anti-missile systems is only one narrow aspect of national security, and the defense minister ought to understand this. It is also only one narrow aspect of Barak's job as the leader of the Labor Party. A swift agreement to determine Israel's borders is not a gesture to Mahmoud Abbas; it reflects a sober view of the country's diplomatic and societal realities, which can only change for the worse.